Library

After landing at the Mumbai Airport last night, my first day in India started with a visit to the one of the oldest and largest libraries of the country – the Asiatic Library in Mumbai. With a hope to find some books written about automobile decoration of India by Indian authors, I began browsing through books in various sections like arts/handicrafts/paintings but couldn’t really find something very useful to the subject of my research. In the almost pin-drop silent atmosphere, the only thing that was creating a ruffle was the impatience in my head to find something relevant.

Most Indian libraries still follow the traditional way of cataloging the books instead of evolving to the online version of keeping a track. The information about each book is written on a rectangular piece of paper, that looks more like a card. These cards are then catalogued in wooden shelves in an alphabetical order.

After a couple of hours and a table full of books, I chanced upon a book that had not much but a little information about the handicrafts, titled ‘5000 years of Arts & Crafts in India & Pakistan’ by Shanti Swarup). I took a copy of passages that I thought would help me in my research, and later went and spoke to the librarian there – Mrs. Swati Majrekar. Although she did seem delighted to hear about the topic of my research, she also mentioned that I was working on a rather unique and different subject, and that she hadn’t come across much literature written about automobile decoration of India.

Even the least decorated trucks on the Indian roads don’t shy away from having a beautiful mast.

The rising water problem in Mumbai has led to an increase in the number of water tankers that can now be found on the city roads. These tankers will mostly promote the name of the company and their contact number.